Apress - Beginning Spatial with SQL Server 2008 (2009) 02 | CHAPTER 1 I DEFINING SPATIAL INFORMATION 9 DEFINING AUGUSTA NATIONAL GOLF COURSE In order to demonstrate the different ways in which spatial data can describe the same object on the earth let me show you a practical example. Suppose we want to store an item of spatial data describing the course at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta Georgia home ofthe annual US Masters Tournament. If we were storing information for a tourist database of interesting places to visit in Georgia it would probably suffice to describe the entire golf course using a Point geometry. This Point could describe the approximate location of the course and would be perfectly sufficient to perform spatial calculations such as finding the distance to the closest airport or identifying nearby places to stay. Alternatively we could choose to represent the course as a geometry collection containing many elements that describe the individual features of the course much more accurately we could represent the greens and the fairways of each hole as separate Polygons use Point objects to represent each tee and use LineString objects to show the optimum drive off the tee. This sort of representation would be more suitable for use by a golfer who is actually playing the course accessing spatial data via a mobile GPS system to plan their next shot. Both of these alternative representations are equally valid the choice simply depends on the application of the data. Understanding Interiors Exteriors and Boundaries Every geometry shape divides space into three areas relative to that geometry the interior exterior and boundary. In the field of topological mathematics these terms have very specific definitions butyou can think of them simply as follows The interior of a geometry consists of all the points that lie in the space occupied by the geometry. The exterior consists of all the points that lie in the space not occupied by the geometry. The boundary of a geometry consists of the points that lie on the .
